Of all the neglected, forgotten, or unknown books Miss Mitford has brought to life again, the Autobiography of Holcroft is the most deserving of resuscitation. We know no memoir of its kind—excepting the only one forbidden book in French literature—that possesses its charm of frankness, truthfulness of detail, and quiet development of character. Unfortunately it is nothing more than a fragment, consisting of seventeen chapters, dictated by Holcroft—a prolific author and translator—in his last illness; stopping short at an interesting point in his career, and furnishing such evidences of clear-sighted judgment, and happy skill in relation and portraiture, as to leave an indelible regret upon the mind of the reader at finding himself cast upon the grander diction of Hazlitt for the continuation of the narrative. The contrast is painful. The brilliancy and paradoxical genius of Hazlitt, rendered him of all men the most unfit to follow up the unpretending strength and simplicity of Holcroft; and the transition is something like being transported from the fresh air and pastoral beauty of a natural landscape into a severe Italian garden. There was but one point in common between them—and that was the most contracted and least characteristic of all—their agreement in politics. Holcroft was a man of larger powers, and a wider range of tastes than might be predicated from that party martyrdom which gave him so distressing a notoriety in the latter days of his life, to the partial eclipse of his literary reputation. But the subject is not likely to be revived now, nor would it repay the labors of a more competent editor. Miss Mitford, however, has done well in drawing attention to Holcroft’s book, and the extracts she has given from it will be read with interest; but it is only from the memoir itself, as a whole, tracing the course of the self-educated boy from his origin upward, that an adequate notion can be formed of the enthralling charm of that singular narrative. We have exceeded our limits. A gossip, intended to occupy only five minutes or so, has already run over the brim of the measure which we proposed to fill up to the health of Miss Mitford. It is not the first time she has tempted us into an excess of this kind; but, if the reader will open her volumes over the fireside as we have done, we are mistaken if he do not find quite as much difficulty as we do now in shutting them up and putting them down again. ----- [12] Recollections of a Literary Life; or Books, Places, and People. By Mary Russell Mitford, Author of “Our Village,” etc. 3 vols. * * * * * THE BLACK HUNTSMAN. HORACE W. SMITH. Loud blew the wind at the midnight hour, With many a wintry blast, Which fairly shook old Rodenstine’s tower, As the Wild Black Huntsman passed.